James W. Tibbs began his illustration career the day his digits were long enough to grip a crayon, at which time he began to hone his craft on a variety of canvasses including walls, floors, furniture and tablecloths (sorry, Mom). As he fumbled through grade school, his choice of media expanded to include ink-on-notebook, paint-on-blackboard and pencil-on-desk, and a trail of tell-tale doodles soon marked his passage from class to class. In an effort to appease his incessant appetite to draw, he was asked to provide illustrations and graphic design elements to his high school annuals, but this only encouraged his cravings.

Swayed by the term ‘starving artist’, he attended the University of Idaho attaining a degree in architecture, which allowed him to combine his artistic leanings with his knack for building stuff. Continuing to the present he has made a modest but relatively stable living as a licensed architect, integrating his flair for drawing, painting, and sculpting at every opportunity. He soon discovered the convenience of the digital medium and added it to his palette while simultaneously discovering that he could fly. This revelation led to a paid position as staff artist for the official magazine of the U.S. Hang Gliding Association as well as inking cartoons, t-shirt designs, and editorial illustrations for a number of flying clubs and regional publications. Having never completely grown up, it occurred to him that illustrating children’s books would be a worthwhile career pursuit.

He wishes to dedicate his children’s book illustrations to his extremely patient mother, an accomplished artist herself who, when not scrubbing walls, floors, furniture and tablecloths has offered invaluable encouragement to his artistic endeavors. Thanks Mom!